Critical Display and CDROM errors on T40

[mtryder]

Hi everyone, and thanks for taking the time to read this. I have a T40 Notebook, and over the time that I've had it it's run into various problems, to the point that it's barely worth even having anymore. The three most recent problems, however, are by far the worst.

First, my battery stopped charging. My first instinct was that the battery was bad, despite the fact that there was no red blinking light, and the computer said the battery was good. So, I got another, and it still would not charge. I used a friend's AC cord to see if mine was malfunctioning, and it still wouldn't charge. To recap, the computer can run off of both AC and battery power, and when it's running on AC it says that the battery is charging, but the battery never charges. When I looked into it through the Maximiser, it showed that there was no current. When I called IBM tech support, they said that it was a problem in the motherboard. I'm only really mentioning this in case it is related to the other problems.

Second, my screen started going blank at random times. While I'm in the middle of work, one of three things will happen:
1) the screen stays on, but goes black, as if a screensaver has been activated. However, it's about a 50/50 shot that it will get stuck like this.
2) The screen turns off, and cannot be turned back on. Once or twice, as I pounded the keys in frustration, it came back on. Usually, however, it won't.
3) The screen flickers, and when it comes back, the display is pretty distorted. Random lines and pixels will show up, etc. The computer may or may not freeze at this point, but if it doesn't, it's a pretty good bet that errors 1 and/or 2 will set in shortly.

Lastly, my Matshita 745 UJDA CD/DVD ROM stopped working. It can still read and burn music CDs, but if I try to play a DVD or read a data CD, it will not even recognize that there is a CD in the drive.

For the CDROM, I tried the newest drivers, but with no luck. If anyone has any advice for what I could do to fix it, I'd really appreciate it. Otherwise, I'm about ready to scrap this piece of junk, as it's been nothing but trouble to me. Once again, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it very much.

PS- I am from the USA, if that makes any difference.

[sktn77a]

Doesn't sound good The battery and screen problems sound hardware related while the DVD problem could be hardware or software. Is the machine still under warranty?

[s0larian]

Your problems sound familiar to me. I had the same problem with the graphics adapter. It began with some artefacts (red lines appeared and disapeared after reboot again) and once I wanted to boot my Thinkpad and I just saw a black screen with coloured squares and lines. Nothing to do anymore, so I got the systemboard replaced.

And I had exactly the same problems with my ujda-745 combo (newest firmware installed), IBM exchanged it with the ujda-755. No problems anymore so far, now it detects and reads DVD's again.

I like my T40p really very much, but it seems that there is a quality problem for some parts of it. I am really glad to have 3 years warranty, because you just need it.

[BillMorrow]

**snip**
First, my battery stopped charging. **SNIP**

did you get the battery error fixed..?

Second, my screen started going blank at random times. While I'm in the middle of work, one of three things will happen:
1) the screen stays on, but goes black, as if a screensaver has been activated. However, it's about a 50/50 shot that it will get stuck like this.
2) The screen turns off, and cannot be turned back on. Once or twice, as I pounded the keys in frustration, it came back on. Usually, however, it won't.
3) The screen flickers, and when it comes back, the display is pretty distorted. Random lines and pixels will show up, etc. The computer may or may not freeze at this point, but if it doesn't, it's a pretty good bet that errors 1 and/or 2 will set in shortly.

sounds like one of two possible problems, here..
1. bad video memory, or
2. lose connection to the system board..

Lastly, my Matshita 745 UJDA CD/DVD ROM stopped working. It can still read and burn music CDs, but if I try to play a DVD or read a data CD, it will not even recognize that there is a CD in the drive.

For the CDROM, I tried the newest drivers, but with no luck. If anyone has any advice for what I could do to fix it, I'd really appreciate it. Otherwise, I'm about ready to scrap this piece of junk, as it's been nothing but trouble to me. Once again, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it very much.

PS- I am from the USA, if that makes any difference.

better that you are in the USA..
sounds like a bad CD drive..

all this is what warranties are for..

but i advise that you restrain yourself when the urge comes upon you to pound the crap out of the keyboard..
a little thing like "user abuse" comes to mind and you do NOT want that fired back at you when you talk with easy serve..